TV watchers probably know Nick Offerman as mustachioed parks department director Ron Swanson on NBC’s Parks & Recreation, but we’re starting to see more of him on the big screen as well. Swanson’s upcoming movie roles include the Sundance hit Smashed and the high profile comedies 21 Jump Street and Casa de mi Padre, as well as two more indies due out later this year. We can now add to the list Lamb of God, Diablo Cody‘s directorial debut.

Cody’s script follows a young woman (Julianne Hough) whose faith is shaken after a horrible plane crash. She ditches her family and church and heads to Las Vegas for a taste of the wild life, encountering all manner of folk (including Russell Brand and Offerman’s Smashed co-star Octavia Spencer) along the way. Offerman’s role has not been revealed at this time. [Deadline]

After the jump, Josh Duhamel and Dan Fogler buddy up, while a Black List script lands some stars.

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If you liked what you saw when NBC posted the first seven minutes of the first episode of Awake earlier this week, you can now watch the other thirty-six. The network has released the entire pilot online for free, weeks in advance of its March premiere date.

Created by Kyle Killen (of the critically adored but amazingly short-lived Lone Star), the drama stars Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter series) as a police detective who survives a devastating car accident to find that his life has been split into two realities. In one, his wife (Laura Allen, Terriers) survived the crash while his son (Dylan Minnette, Lost) perished; in the other, the reverse is true. Wilmer Valderrama, Steve Harris, Cherry Jones, B.D. Wong, and Michaela McManus also star. Watch the full-length episode after the jump.

NBC dropped an extended preview of its upcoming drama Awake last week, but today we have an even better look at the new show in the form of the first seven minutes of the episode. Jason Isaacs stars as Detective Michael Britten, who survives a car crash to find his life split into two realities: one in which his wife (Laura Allen, Terriers) lived through the accident, and another in which his son (Dylan Minnette, Lost) did. It’s a setup that requires a bit of explaining, but the premiere seems to get it out of the way fairly quickly. Watch the clip after the jump.

Remember The Beaver? First-time writer Kyle Killen‘s spec screenplay created all sorts of buzz around Hollywood, ended up on the 2008 Black List (a list of the hottest unproduced screenplays of the year), and gained the interest of Steve Carell and director Jay Roach. A lot of people, including former /Film writer Brendon Connelly called the screenplay “one of the few very best screenplays” he had “ever read.”

Roach and Carell left the project, and Jodie Foster (who directed Little Man Tate and Home for the Holidays) came aboard to helm the project with Mel Gibson in the leading role. Gibson’s problems in his personal life have caused this film to sit on the shelf, while Foster has tried to fine tune the film’s tone, and Summit Entertainment brainstorms ways to market a movie starring an actor who has made anti-Semitic and racist remarks. But the studio has been quietly positioning the film to be Gibson’s comeback project.

Usually when the first poster for a movie is revealed, it means the film is coming soon. That unfortunately might not be the case for director Jodie Foster’sThe Beaver, starring Mel Gibson from a script by Kyle Killen. The script was number one on the 2008 Black List and is about a man who finds a beaver puppet in the garbage and decides to communicate only using the beaver. Stars like Steve Carell and Jim Carrey hovered around the project, but when Gibson took over the lead role, the film reached a whole other level. It would be only the second film for the Oscar-winner since spewing anti-Semetic remarks in a drunken tirade. But then, just as that incident was seemingly forgotten and the film was finishing, Gibson found himself in hot water again after leaving his girlfriend violent voicemails with racial slurs. Jump to the present and Gibson is once again untouchable. His Leonardo DiCaprio Viking movie went away as did his cameo in The Hangover Part II. Thankfully, none of that takes away from a poster that’s kind of creepy and funny. Check out the full poster and more after the jump. Read More »

Remember The Beaver? First-time writer Kyle Killen‘s spec screenplay created all sorts of buzz around Hollywood, ended up on the 2008 Black List (a list of the hottest unproduced screenplays of the year), and gained the interest of Steve Carell and director Jay Roach. /Film’s own Brendon Connelly called the screenplay “one of the few very best screenplays” he has “ever read.”

But after Steve moved on to Date Night and Roach moved on to Dinner for Schmucks, the producers moved on to Jim Carrey, who signed on the condition that they find a suitable director. Not sure what happened since, but Jodie Foster (who directed Little Man Tate and Home of the Holidays), who was one of the contenders at the time, has officially come on board the project. Carrey is gone. In his place… Mel Gibson?

One of the few very best screenplays I have ever read was Kyle Killen‘s 2008 Black List topper, The Beaver. At the time I read it, Steve Carell was attached to star and Jay Roach was in talks to direct. Roach, I might ho-hum about but Carell struck me as an absolute perfect choice. Now it seems that both Carell and Roach have moved on and the producers are courting Jim Carrey for the lead. However, The Hollywood Reporter are suggesting that Carrey signing on is conditional on the contracting of a suitable director.

Who ever takes the lead role will in fact end up getting two lead roles. Not only will they be playing Walter, troubled father and husband and CEO of a stalling toy company, they will have to give voice to The Beaver, a glove pupper that Walter finds, starts to wear without pause, and adopts as a kind of avatar through which he carries out all of his communication. Almost all of the dialogue given to the lead actor throughout the entire screenplay will have to come from the Beaver, and be delivered in what Killen describes as a “crisp English accent”.